


Exile in Guyville

by gloss



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen, birdboys, camper than thou, sidekickery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's harder to be friends than lovers. Originally known as Battle for the Couch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exile in Guyville

**Author's Note:**

> **Setting/spoilers** \- Vague past Batfamily through the fact of RIP. Really not tied to current canon, since I'm not exactly reading it.

Moving back to Gotham could be considered a regression. Dick knows that all too well. He prefers, though, to think about the benefits of the move. Right at the top of the list was his new proximity to family.

When Tim and the rest of the Titans returned from a disastrous mission in outer space, Dick was waiting on the tarmac in Florida. Bad weather in the Gulf, however, meant that the team landed in California. Before Dick could see his little brother, *his* team of Titans was called away to Outer Bialya; Dick got away as quickly as he could, only to find, once he hit Gotham, that Tim was down in Texas, lending the new Beetle a hand.

It was a good week, maybe ten days, then before they managed to hook up. Dick pushed the issue by appearing at Tim's school at lunch, tossing him a size-small helmet before throwing him over his shoulder and hauling ass for the bike.

"The Robincycle?" Tim asked. "*Really?*"

"Gets me where I need to be." Dick gunned the engine and risked a glance over his shoulder. "Hey, you."

Tim's frown was distorted, maybe softened a little, by the helmet. "Hey."

"Missed you."

Tim's reply, if any, was lost in the screech of tires.

Dick hadn't exactly spent much thought on furnishing or decoration of the new place. So long as he had somewhere to lay his head, stash his gear, and eat his food, he didn't care what it looked like. Its emptiness only struck him when he showed it to Tim. Their footsteps echoed nearly as loudly as the realtor's had. That was last month already.

Dick scratched the back of his neck. "I guess it's kind of bare --"

In the middle of the living room, Tim turned in a circle, arms out. His fingertips brushed the top of the new flat-screen TV. Besides the couch and chair, the television was the room's only occupant. "Your priorities are pretty clear, that's all."

"Well, yeah," Dick said, falling backward into the welcoming confines of the couch. He caught his foot around Tim's calf and yanked him down. "Guys live here. All you need is a boob tube, La-Z-Boys, and a big fridge."

"Masculinity circa Archie Bunker, sure." Tim ran his hand over the leather. "Nicer than any La-Z-Boy *I've* ever seen."

The John Ford marathon began with _Stagecoach_ and _Drums Along the Mohawk_. Now, well into the third act of _Young Mr. Lincoln_, Dick has succeeded in getting his arm around Tim, hauling him half onto his lap. Tim's left leg is hooked over Dick's right and Dick's other hand is tucked into the big pouch pocket on Tim's hooded sweatshirt.

"Feeling better?" Tim asks as the orchestral score fades and the screen goes black. He nudges Dick with his elbow.

"Getting there." Dick rests his chin against Tim's sharp little shoulder. Against him, Tim weighs very little, hardly more than a collection of kindling sticks and other pointy, awkwardly-angled things.

He doesn't bother to wonder how Tim knew he needed this, just chalks it up to Tim's inherent, weird *Timminess*.

Dick won't let go. He's made that promise countless times over the years, and he's meant it even more each time.

Each failure just means he has to try harder the next time.

When the front door bangs open, Tim stiffens, alert as a cat. Dick wouldn't be surprised if the tips of his ears swivelled.

"Roommate," Dick reminds him.

Now it's Dick's turn to hold his breath.

Hobnailed, steeltoed boots would make a racket anywhere. They are thunderous down the apartment's hall. Heading for the kitchen, pausing at the fridge. Dick glances at the empty soda bottle on the floor and digs his hand a little deeper into Tim's pocket.

The refrigerator door slams shut. Even in here, the sound of rattling glassware is loud enough to make you cringe. And then comes the yelling. "The fuckety fuck? What'd I tell you last time? Drink my Fresca and you're going else-fucking-where for any and all cocksucking needs."

Twisted around like some ancient tree, Tim stares at Dick with narrowed eyes. Dick gives him a tight smile, but Tim looks away.

The boots thunk hollowly towards the living room, rat-a-tat-tat tommy-gun fire, backbeat to the ranting. "Rules of the house, Grayson. Sweet and simple, so easy even you can get 'em. Get it through your pretty little head, would you? My stuff. Is *my* stuff, no fucking sharing, end of story."

Tim shifts until one leg is under him and he is ready to spring. His right hand reaches slowly for something holstered on his calf.

He goes to school armed with weapons? That can't be good.

"I was going to tell you --" Dick starts to say. That's probably a fib, but it's the best he's got.

Besides, he'd lay good odds on the fact that Tim's personal surveillance is second only to Babs'.

When he tries to bat Tim's hand away from the holster, Tim twists free.

"Jason." Tim's voice is flat, so quiet that it's for Dick, a question and an accusation all tangled together.

"Well, well." Jay stops in the doorway, silhouetted by the light in the hall as he tips his head back and drains a gallon jug of orange juice. He tosses it over his shoulder when he's finished, and waits until its bouncing has died down before acknowledging Tim. "We've got *company*, do we?"

"Jason." Tim braces his hand on the back of the couch and pulls himself up to his knees.

"Baby buttplug," Jason says amiably. He vaults one-handed into the recliner beside the couch. "How deliciously fucking *awful* to see you."

"Jay --" Dick says.

"*Dick*," Jason replies. "Shush. I'm making soulsucking small talk with our unwanted guest." He leans forward, grin sickly as a skull, and plants his chin on his fist. "Timothy J. Drake-Wayne, whatever brings you down from the stately manor's empyrean heights?"

For a split second, Dick believes everything's going to be all right. Jay will simmer down, Tim will play the icily-polite good boy he's played since before he was out of diapers, and they'll all get out of this intact.

Tim coughs lightly and tilts his head slightly. "What brings *you* out of the gutter?"

"Tim, come on --" Dick tries, but Tim crosses his arms. All his attention is for Jason.

Dick had pinned his hopes on this being a fait accompli. Once he was in Gotham, these two would have to deal with each other.

That plan *seemed* simple enough.

"Hey, fuck you --" Jason says.

Tim snickers. "Your vocabulary's as broad as ever."

"No, seriously. Fuck. You. That's my hoodie --" Jason jabs his finger past Dick. "You fucking stole my *clothes*, too?"

Tim is on his feet. He shuffles quickly into a defensive stance. Dick's arm drops through empty air to his side. "I don't have to take this."

Jason flops back in the chair and drums out a rapid tattoo on his belly. To the ceiling, he says, sounding, if anything, bored, "After everything you've already taken, *this* is the last straw?"

"Guys --" Dick reaches for Tim's arm, his hand, anything. He gets only air. "Sit down, chill out. C'mon --"

Tim's jaw tightens. His gaze is levelled on Jason and never flickers.

For his part, Jason grins like -- a cat with a whole *flock* of canaries in his gut. He's gunning for Tim, shifting and probing, looking for just the best, the weakest, spot.

Jay fights in a blaze of noise and hits, an overwhelming offense to stun the victim. Tim works silently, around the corners of things, valuing stealth and skill above all. He'll choose the tactical hit, the very best one, while Jay will hit and punch, kick and cut, increasing the chances of contact through a flurry of attempts.

The last thing the apartment needs is a bloodbath.

Dick knows better than to appeal to Jason's reasonable side, but he gives it a whirl. "Jay, man, it's Tim's sweatshirt. He's always dressed like --"

Red hooded sweatshirts, just like the security footage of a certain pint-sized tire thief.

Jay rolls his eyes, mouthing "light dawns", as Dick makes the connection.

Very slowly, so each metal tooth audibly pops free, Tim unzips the hoodie, then pulls it off, one arm at a time. He shakes it out, then rapidly folds it with the scary skill of a Gap employee.

"I bought this in Metropolis," Tim says, proffering the sweatshirt to Dick. Dick takes it, not sure what to do with it now. "After Kon's memorial. It got cold suddenly, remember?"

He is addressing Dick, formally, with all the deliberateness of a society matron shunning someone's trophy bimbo.

And if there's one thing Jason can't take, it's being ignored. He moves next to Dick, nearly in front of him. "Memorial service, huh? Yeah, your life's *tragic*," he says. "Pity party's never-fucking-ending with you."

"*Jay*," Dick says.

"*Dick*."

"At Hollister, I believe," Tim continues, frostily. "Though I could be mistaken."

"Then it's not mine." Jay knocks the sweatshirt from Dick's hand and kicks it across the room. "I may be an undead psycho loony, but I *do* try not to dress like America's Next Top Twink. Especially not when it's all sweatshop-made."

"Yet another of your countless virtues." Tim sounds absent, preoccupied. His gaze hasn't strayed from Dick; Dick *knows* there are a thousand questions in that look.

He just doesn't know what any of them are, nor where to start.

"Timmy, come on --" Dick tries again, plucking at Tim's shirt sleeve and sitting down. "Please?"

"Yeah, *Timmy*." Jason perches on the arm of the couch next to Dick. "Be a pal, Timbo. Be a *bro*."

"You're crazy," Tim says.

Jason heaves with laughter and singsongs, "I know I am, but what are you?"

"I was talking to Dick." Tim is so frosty, he might as well be an ice sculpture. "You, Todd, you're not crazy. You just use it --"

This is getting worse, the situation metastasizing, and Dick's head pounds. "Tim --"

Jason cuts him off. "Oh, I'm crazy all right. Got a doctor's note and everything."

"-- use it to excuse --" Tim keeps on, his voice getting higher, red spots flashing high on his cheeks. He sounds like a broken computer, Stephen Hawking's voice-modulator on the fritz. "-- excuse inexcusable behavior, repellent attitudes, heinous activities --"

"Good thing I'm so pretty, huh?" Jason slides off the arm into Dick's lap, kicking Tim in the knee, making him stumble. He pinches Dick's chin and waggles his brows. "Not as pretty as *this* one. Greek fucking god, this one." He busses Dick's cheek and adds, "Interestingly enough, however, I'm better hung. Go figure."

"He's doing this on purpose," Tim says. He manages, with the strained patience of a pre-K teacher, to speak *over* Jason, *to* Dick. "I hope you know that."

Jay rests his head against Dick's neck. His hair smells good, familiar and warm. Like home. Dick inhales again, wondering how long the quiet will last, whether he can make it through the rest of the fight.

The buzzer for the front door sounds.

"Food! Fucking *finally* --" Jay pushes himself to his feet and holds out his hand. "Spot me?"

"When did you --" Dick starts to ask, then gives up. Tim's looking away, eyes narrowed, body drawn in tight as a folded jackknife.

"Called when I was on my way home," Jay says. Tim snorts at the "home"; Jay flips him off without looking away from Dick. "C'mon, number one son. Your allowance's *so* much bigger."

He's got his hand extended as he makes please-sir-may-I-have-some-more?-Oliver eyes. Dick digs out a twenty.

Jay wiggles his fingers.

"More?"

"I ordered wings!" Sounding wounded, Jay grabs for Dick's wallet and skips toward the hall as the buzzer sounds again. He swats Tim as he passes and Tim stumbles on to the couch. "You boys make up and play nicey-nice for Uncle Jay, you hear?"

They are alone again. Dick studies his palms.

Tim is hunched, hair falling over his eyes.

Dick doesn't have anything to apologize for. He knows that much.

"Timmy --" He must have said Tim's name about a thousand times already today. All he knows is names.

"I wish you were kidding." Tim looks X-ray deep at Dick. "Jason Todd."

It isn't a question, so how is Dick supposed to answer?

* * *

The fight could have been any of several. Over the years, he'd lost count.

When Jason came back, Dick took Bruce's reaction -- confusion, fury, renewed grief -- as his own. He had been doing that for so long, it was automatic. Everything pointed back to Bruce; everything started with him. Gotham, Batman, life and justice.

The only thing that was Dick's own had been Robin, once.

That hadn't lasted very long.

Adopting Bruce's reaction to Jason's return simply made sense. Made Dick a good soldier. Maybe the best.

So this fight, this run of the mill one, this unremarkable spar against a foggy night, too warm for the late season, came in New York, back when Jason was running around in Dick's costume. Dick's knee twinged, or he feigned tiredness too well, or maybe he just needed a *break*, it didn't matter.

Dick ended up on his belly, Jason's boot grinding his cheek into the tarred rooftop. His mind moved, wildly, remembering his aching grief, grief that left him evacuated and exhausted, after Clark died. Years ago now, but he felt it like it was still new, still happening, even as his thoughts streaked to Tarantula, on him, on another rooftop.

"Huh." Jason replaced his heel with his gloved hand and dropped down to straddle Dick's back. "And everyone says *I'm* the crazy one."

What did he see, what was he *hearing*? Dick's eyes were closed, his body gone limp, time and memory vortexing down his center.

Knee in kidney, hand on the nape of Dick's neck, Jason rocked a bit and hummed.

After three or four bars of "Shenandoah", he pinched Dick's cheek and leaned over, breath cold on Dick's skin. "Hmm? I'm not the only one, am I?"

Under Jason's weight, the music dying away, Dick rested.

For several thuds of his heart, he could not remember a time that he hadn't belonged to someone else. His body was empty, his soul evicted.

"Someone's worked you over but *good*." Jason's breath caught between them just before he sucked a noisy kiss onto Dick's temple, leaned back, heaving his body up, away, and then he was gone.

The city noise closed in over Dick, clinging with the fog, describing the vacant shape he made, still lying there.

A long while passed before he remembered that moment. Jason had been to space and the multiverse and back, and Dick moved to New York *again*, and Bruce --.

Bruce was gone.

Dick was relearning Gotham, patrolling slow and desultory, when he saw Jason again. Jay stood in a small group, laughing, voice booming. They were outside an afterhours club down in the garment district, lining up at a Korean taqueria truck. Dressed in civvies, hair long overdue for a cut, stubble down the sides of his jaw, stockier than Dick recalled, Jason looked -- good. Normal. Good. Like any guy Dick would have checked out twice on those rare nights when he went out as a human, when Roy dragged him out.

From his spot on the next roof, Dick whistled the opening bars of "Shenandoah".

Jason stuffed the last of his taco in his mouth, rocked his head back and forth to crack his neck, and took some sweet, slow time looking up and saluting.

His companions elbowed him and Jason shook them off, stepping free, grinning as he jerked his head northward.

His smile was rare and bright, so genuine that Dick _knew_ he had never seen it before.

Jay tossed aside his paper plate, and headed north, trusting Dick to follow.

"You owe me dinner," he said when Dick dropped down into the narrow alley jerking crookedly between three adjacent warehouses. "You have any idea how hard that truck is to find?"

"Put it on my tab." Dick flexed empty hands. He would lay even odds on Jason getting ready to fight him versus embracing him.

Jason laughed as he feinted right, hit left. Dick spun, grabbing Jason's wrists and pulling his hands up between them, yanking him close.

"Let me guess," Jason said and he was so close that Dick's focus blurred. His breath stank of kimchi and cigarette smoke. "You lonely?"

Jay's eyes shone wild in his laughing face. He never took anything seriously, never had, and, soon enough, Dick was laughing, too, into the heat of Jason's mouth and neck.

* * *

Dick doesn't know how to explain any of this to Tim. Grief that demolishes you, little brothers you were never related to, names that get shared and those that don't.

"Yeah," he says, again, having run out of what few words he had to begin with. "I hope, um."

"Ladies and gentle--. Well. Ladies and ladies," Jason announces, backing into the room with his arms full of pizza boxes and smaller food containers, "I do hope this takes the edge off."

He drops into the narrow space between Dick and Tim on the couch and slides the boxes onto the floor. "Got sausage and onions for Dickiebird and plain ascetic soulkilling *wheatless* for Junior --" He shoulder-bumps Tim. "You still struggling with the heartbreak of gluten intolerance, mini-me?"

"I --" Tim blinks and glances at Dick over Jay's back. "Yeah."

"Thought so." Jay hands Tim a slice of anemic-looking pizza.

"Thank you," Tim says, and Dick can see the moment his politeness kicks in. It's a mask and a defense, but a far, far better one than sniping or wielding weapons.

"I didn't spike it," Jason adds as he retrieves his leaking box of hot wings. Tim takes a neat little bite. "You know, by the way."

Jay knew that Tim was here before he got home; the pizza is evidence enough of that. That leaves Dick wondering just how good Jay's security systems are and how closely he's being monitored. It's all a question he files for later. In their family, love means surveillance, and that's never going to change.

Besides, it's more notable, isn't it, that Jay reacted to Tim's visit by ordering him food, not torching the block.

"Eat up," Jay says, kicking the unopened pizza box toward Dick's feet. "Can't have you wasting away on me." He smacks his lips. "If you know what I mean."

Tim glances at Dick again, as Jason slouches down, one leg over Dick's knee, the opposite arm across the back of the couch behind Tim. The corners of Tim's mouth deepen and wink, almost like dimples.

Dick blinks, but the image persists.

"Searchers is on --" Jason lifts his chin at the television. "Hit the volume, 'cause I need some Jeff Hunter in tight-ass denim goodness, and I need it *stat*."

"Like he can hold a candle to Natalie Wood," Tim says quietly, but thumbs the remote until the score throbs and swells.

"What're you on, little man?" Jay shouts. "Vera Miles could snap little Miss Wood in *two*!"

"She's an also-ran."

"-- just by *looking* at that scrawny chick, Vera could --"

"She's hardly in the same league," Tim says. "Please."

The muscles Jason's leg twitch and he bangs his fist into the opposite palm. "See, now I know you're an idiot and all that prep-school moolah went to fucking *waste*. For Chrissake, Hitchcock wrote Vertigo for Lady Vera! Verti-*go*."

"Also overrated." Tim snickers, just as nice and neatly as he eats, precisely as anything.

Jason is practically vibrating out of his seat.

It's up to Dick to make peace. If he's learned anything today, though, it's that he is just about the last person suited for that.

"I like John Wayne," Dick puts in.

They laugh at him. Once they start, it's not going to stop, not for a good long time. If ever.

 

[end]


End file.
